Allen's Farm. opposite side of the attic, then to the other corner, up and down and back and forth across that frame until the "chain" was in order ready to roll on the big beam of the loom, when father would come up to help. Some one held the "chain" steady and he "beamed it on" by turning a kind of rude crank. This done, there was still a number of hours work before the weaving could begin. The warp must be picked through the harness with the fingers and then through the reed with a flat wooden hook. Right cheerily buzzed and purred the little quill wheel when evening came and mother sat down to the tedious work of winding the "filling" on small paper quills just large enough to fit in the little boat shaped shutties. The warp having been secured to a rod and that rod made fast to a beam in front, then the work of weaving began. To and fro the shuttle flew, back and forth swung the movable beam in the weaver's hands, beating unconscious time to the swiftly flying shuttle. That was a wonderful garret where our loom was. There never was another just like it. Away back under the roof were hidden some things whose mysteries I never dared to solve. Oh! Oh! what days those were when it rained! Then I could play "up garret," and I would build wondrous castles about those things I just saw peeping out away under the roof, while mother worked, now and then stopping to tell me an old time story. I guess I'll go up in the old attic some rainy day and hunt up the old things and dream again— but stop a moment. The old loom is gone the old garret is empty now -the old curiosities that tantalized my childish fancy so much are dust. In my dreams I live again those happy scenes and wake to find that "All are gone the old familiar faces Earth seemed a dessert I was bound Part of the yarn was doubled and twisted and reeled into skeins for knitting. When the long winter evenings came, Aunt Azubah sat in her corner by the south side of the stove with a candle on the stand beside her and mother at the table opposite with another candle and the two had good-natured knitting matches in which my aunt usually came out ahead, while my father sat in his arm chair by the wood box and tended the fire and told marvellous hunting stories and now and then a witch story that would make me cover my head up completely with the bed clothes when I went to bed that night. There was one about old Aunt Rosie, an old dame who lived alone and who used to wonder why the boys and girls refused her offered treat of buttermilk. "Why," said she, "Pussy likes it, and I like it." She had a reputation of being a witch. Some one in passing near her house one dark night had heard strange mutterings and rumblings through the hills and Aunt Rosie was outfolks said; and actually one time somebody was churning cream and it wouldn't come, and it wouldn't come and somebody said "heat the poker," and somebody did it and put the poker in the cream and out jumped a big black cat, right out of the churn and ran away as fast as he could, and Aunt Rosie was laid up with a bad burn for a long time. About this time my mother's gentle voice interposed, "Horace, Horace, you mustn't tell such stories before the child." Then I was convinced that there was something dreadful in the big, grownup world, and it might catch me that very night; so I covered my head a little closer than usual that night when I went to bed; just leaving the tip of my nose sticking out; a habit of which I haven't succeeded in breaking myself to this day. Often their reminiscences took a deeper vein. How those old stories that father and mother and aunt were so fond of telling, thrilled and charmed me. One of them was from a series of faithful pictures of that most revered personage of the past, the minister. For over a century the people on the hills had looked. fondly to the little church in the val ter of 1857 was one noted for its terrible storms. In the midst of one of the severest snow storms, Jairus Burt, the pastor of that church for thirty years, died. My father never wearied telling how the men from far and near on the hills gathered with their stout ox teams and broke the roads to the church the day before the funeral, and how the winds blew that night and packed the fast-gathering snow into new drifts and in the morning all the roads were filled with drifts higher and firmer than the day before; but, undaunted, the men and their teams gathered once more and in the stinging cold wind worked their way, painfully shovelling the snow step by step until they reached the church. None went from the hills to that service except with oxteams. Very few women were brave enough to face the intense cold of that storm, and so the men from the hills and the valley came together and buried him who had led them in their thought for thirty years. No common man was he. When the first whispers of freedom for the slave were heard he caught the sound long ley for their inspiration. The win- The little red house - Massenger's old Farm Old Attic: before other deafened ears and began to preach stirring abolition sermons that shook the old church to its very foundations. The brethren waited on him in a body and asked him to promise to stop praying for the slaves. "That," said he, with fine prescience, "I cannot do, for the time may come when you may want me to pray for them." He lived to see the day when every one of those who wished him to desist was ready to urge him on in the cause of freedom. Then my mother would tell, with that old time fondness for death-bed scenes and dying words, how, when all knew that Mr. Burt must die, one of the brothers of the church asked him what his feelings were about dying, and how the old preacher replied, "Brother, I have no fears." Some days, when it stormed real hard, my mother would bring from its treasured corner a handful of smooth, silky, grey flax and her own mother's little linen wheel and, seating herself near the window to make the most of the dim light of the grey day, she would put the flax on the distaff and turn the wheel with the treadle, and, moistening the flax fibers from the little can of water that hung on the wheel, she would deftly twist and roll them and pull them out together into a fine even thread. I can hear now the soft purr of the little wheel regularly broken by the click-clack of the treadle. My mother always loved this work; for it brought her hosts of happy memories of her own childhood and her mother; but she seldom spun much flax because flax raising had ceased long ago to be an industry among the farmers. When I was a child I sowed a few flax seeds just to see how the blossom looked, and I can picture to myself how beautiful a field of flax must have been in bloom, a waving, shimmering sea of blue and green. What maiden of today can ever take such pride in her wedding outfit of ready made linen, bought in a department store, as she could in one of 1800? The maiden of 1800 watched the flax blossom, helped prepare it for hatchalling, carded it, spun it, wove it, bleached the cloth and ted iously sewed by hand every one of the dainty articles. What a host of dreams and hopes and plans were blended in the warp and woof of such fabrics! No wonder our mothers and grandmothers cherished most ten derly every scrap of cloth so rich in memories! As I look at the past, I cannot help querying whether the world has gained or lost by taking these industries out of our homes and massing them in great centers. FRAGMENTS FROM "THE ROSE MAIDEN" (Sung by the Hartford Conservatory Choral Union.) Green vale and vine-clad mountain Lie locked in snowy sleep: No lark is skywood singing, And all the world doth weep. And looked across the valley Down from the dark green wood Among the pine-trees madly The wild north wind may rush, And scatter cones and branches, And rave through brake and bush Both though o'er hill and valley The winds of Winter storm, Still fast within that cottage Stay's Summer's radiant form. Oh! hear thou king of beauty Nay-why should all my gladness That Spring will bloom again. But hast thou then forgotten, That have the sharpest thorn? That fount thou fain would 'st drink of, Hast thou wandered in the forest, All the glory of the trees- Shall thy bitter longing cease, And thy heart shall weep no longer, And thy spirit shall have peace. Where gloomy pine-trees rustle, Yea! e'en as die the roses, Must die the truest heart, They that rejoice, must sorrow, And they that love, must part, But yet, O God, we praise Thee, Who blendest night and morn; Too lovely were Thy roses, Were they without a thorn. He is here, he has come in his coat of mail; His laugh is the roar of the mighty sea Through the blinding mist of the cold salt spray, The cold hand of winter grips like a vise; On the black cloud-rack you may see his form; Though his frosty breath may blight and kill, New flowers will come to the field and hill. We will seek the lambs that have missed the fold, We'll pray for the mariner out at sea, That his anchor hold for eternity. We will bid our neighbors be of good cheer, For the heart of Christmas beats all the year! It gives new life to the veins of spring; It throbs through the measures the glad birds sing; It sends the warm blood to the Summer's face, And gives unto Autumn her royal grace. But Winter, of all, is supremely blest, With that glowing heart in his rugged breast; |